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Elon Musk Says Tesla Could Rebuild Puerto Rico's Power Grid With Batteries, Solar (electrek.co)
After Puerto Rico was hit by hurricane Maria, Tesla quickly started shipping hundreds of its Powerwall batteries there to try and get power back on to some houses with solar arrays. Now, Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter to say that Tesla could rebuild Puerto Rico's power grid with batteries and solar on a bigger scale. Electrek reports: Puerto Rico's electricity rates were already quite high at around $0.20 per kWh and reliant on fossil fuels. After it was pointed out that Puerto Rico's destroyed grid is an opportunity to build a better one, Musk wrote on Twitter: "The Tesla team has done this for many smaller islands around the world, but there is no scalability limit so it can be done for Puerto Rico too. Such a decision would be in the hands of the Puerto Rico government, PUC (Public Utilities Commission), any commercial stakeholders and, most importantly, the people of Puerto Rico."
Musk is referring to solar and battery projects that Tesla recently deployed on other islands, like Tesla's visually stunning Powerpack and solar project in Kauai. Those projects power grids for much smaller populations, but Musk has always said that it's scalable to support much larger islands, like Puerto Rico, and ultimately entire continents, which are just like big islands to a certain degree. The thing is that those systems are still reliant on power lines for larger communities and devices, like solar panels and wind turbines, that are still subject to problems with natural disasters. The advantage of Tesla's solution is that it has the potential to be distributed, which increases the odds of at least some systems staying online or bringing some back online quicker.
Musk is referring to solar and battery projects that Tesla recently deployed on other islands, like Tesla's visually stunning Powerpack and solar project in Kauai. Those projects power grids for much smaller populations, but Musk has always said that it's scalable to support much larger islands, like Puerto Rico, and ultimately entire continents, which are just like big islands to a certain degree. The thing is that those systems are still reliant on power lines for larger communities and devices, like solar panels and wind turbines, that are still subject to problems with natural disasters. The advantage of Tesla's solution is that it has the potential to be distributed, which increases the odds of at least some systems staying online or bringing some back online quicker.
In other news Elon Musk doesn't understand being poor.
Dafuq?
If it were that easy, don't you think Puerto Rico - or someplace else on the whole damn Earth - would have done it by now?
The story I heard on NPR the other day suggests that the limiting factor though is going to be money.
But with Twitler intent on bringing back coal jobs do you think it will happen?
You have a lot to do.
before the hurricane. why didn't he offer to help then?
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
As far as I know currently available lithium batteries still wear out after 1,000 cycles and slightly more for LiFePo4. There have been lots of breakthroughs but nothing for mass production. So if they go for this they'll have to buy a massive pile of new batteries every 5 years or so? Doesn't seem like a great solution
It will just take another hurricane and suddenly all those solar panels are gone.
Shouldn't he be busy building cars? ... asked the Tesla shareholder.
No, don't look to see what PR were using that isn't working at the moment. Please.
Oh, and to the moron whining about the expense, wrong again, asshole. It's cheap enough. The infrastructure is not going to be working anyway, so it will cost poor people to get ANY power at all back. So why not make it solar, if it's going to cost money anyway? If you want to claim it will cost more, how much more? How do you know? Where is your rollout plan for solar and what is the alternative plan without? Have you done the correct calculations or not? Because unless you do that, you're just making wild-ass claims based on ignorance.
However, it might be better to let people do it who did that before elsewhere. Including sub terrain cables, like in the EU, which do not fail when there is a hurricane.
How about potassium ion? There's even research in Silicon based batteries, and I doubt we'll run out of that any time soon.
Or are you just blowing hot air and proclaiming from your cherished ignorance?
There's not enough lithium on the planet to produce the batteries required to do this on a country sized scale:
That's why he's going to Mars
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
What's preventing them from building a subterranean power grid? If we can put fiber optic cables on the floor of the ocean, we can put power lines underground and expose them above ground in certain areas. Leaving the critical lines protected and the "last-mile" lines above ground for easy work.
Such an exaggeration. The amount of lithium used in batteries is minimal. Plus there are other (better) chemistries than lead batteries for cars. Edison used nickel-iron batteries in his electric car for example. Not to mention NiMH.
Never let a disaster go to waste. $$$$$$$
Agreed. And last I heard, there was research into making the large batteries needed where volume & weight is no object (as would be the case for these static batteries) out of cellulose, aka wood fibers! https://link.springer.com/arti... As you mention, the amount of lithium needed is minimal, the insulating layer between the electrodes within the battery is a larger problem, however.
---- I am certain of only one thing : I know nothing else.
1) Despite the name, there just isn't that much lithium in a lithium-ion battery - and thus battery manufacturers can pay significantly more and not profoundly affect battery prices.
2) "Reserves" figures are based on a given A) exploration level, B) production tech level, and C) market price point. A) has historically been low, B) hasn't had reason to advance much, and C)... well, see point #1.
3) Growth in reserves with respect to 2A is roughly linear, while it's exponential with respect to 2B and 2C.
As an example of extremes: there's approximately 2,4e17 kilograms of lithium in Earth's oceans. Yes, producing from seawater with current tech (see 2B) costs a few times more than producing from land-based lithium sources per kilogram, so it's not commercially done. But battery manufacturers certainly can afford to pay those prices. And because of that, it's essentially impossible for them to run out of lithium. There can be temporary shortfalls due to production scaleups, but no long-term barriers.
(Not that they would go straight to seawater lithium; there's lots of land-based sources far larger than current "reserves" that would be turned to first)
"If there was an antonym to 'Elon Musk', it would be 'Richard Branson'."
Those numbers are way off!
Is he really saying that there's going to be at 30% capacity across the entire of the US for 7 days! Solar and wind? Rather than build more batteries, why not build more generation capability? If we're looking at exceptional events, we can start rationing power in those rare occasions.
He won't unless someone writes him a check. Big fat unlimited check.
And PR has no money. and isn't a state. So elon musk won't be doing one dammed thing for puerto rico.
Anything you put on that island is just something that's going to get knocked over, drowned, or washed out to sea. We should be buying out anyone without the wherewithal to rebuild for themselves. This is the new normal. How many powerwalls have to become subaquatic before we get the message?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Musk is not helping matters given he only wants aid to provide a stream of money to a otherwise failure to sell these power systems. The electric company in PR was massively in debt before the storm, the people don't have money to rebuild let alone buy one of Musk's power systems, or install solar panels.
Clearly Musk is trying to take the opportunity to get government to pay for his systems through some sort of emergency response deal.
I'd mod that up, but I have no clue how to qualify that.
+1 Troll?
If you want to be technical, A affects resources not reserves, B affects the proportion of resources that are reserves, and C affects investment into B, but also the economically exploitable reserves, with is a third figure.
What the island needs is wind farms. The trade winds are quite strong and blow almost constantly. They would also take up far less land than solar farms.
I think for 3.4 million people, you'd need several nuclear power plants. Remember that every few years, the plant goes down for many weeks for refueling and maintenance. We can't just ship everyone on the island to Manhattan until the plant comes back up. Also, the plants take a long time to build and recent projects in the US, Finland, France have had substantial problems with big time cost and schedule overruns.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
Solar panels seem especially vulnerable but everything would have to be robust and capable of being secured or removed to minimize damage until a hurricane passes.
It's a good thing he tested on smaller islands first. Now we know the weight of the batteries won't cause Puerto Rico to tip over like Guam.
Since the Government has a line of bond holders with big IOUs , only private folks with property/ collateral or cash can afford but they might need to provide for themselves since the Government might not be able anytime soon. While poor people will have to wait while the folks with capital find a way to eventually trickle down.
1) Despite the name, there just isn't that much lithium in a lithium-ion battery
Just the other day I read the following figures: "Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) 70kWh Model S battery pack contains 63Kg of lithium, equivalent to the amount of lithium in 10,000 cellphones"
Granted, this was in the same advertorial that claimed: "Lithium brine deposits are estimated to contain 66 percent of the world's 14 million metric tonnes (MT) of Lithium" so I am inclined to take their figures with a pinch of salt (no pun intended). After all, combining both of their numbers means there's only enough lithium on the planet to 'power' 220 million electric cars. Oops!
One also imagines that the effort involved in extracting lithium from seawater increases (and the extraction rate decreases) as concentrations decrease. It will be interesting to see how this pans out over the next few years, especially once one (and more) of Elon's Gigafactories come online.
Why not a satellite that collects solar and beams down microwaves?
Anyone can have anything they want, provided they are willing and able to pay for it.
This egotistical hack wanting more tax payer money to pad his pockets. I thought Bono had the world's biggest ego, Musk you're vying for that spot though!
I think PR and all Caribbean Islands prone to hurricane strikes need to rethink infrastructure, from burying electrical lines in conduits to requiring all habitable structures to be made of reinforced concrete. And, while I think one of solar power's greatest potential is for providing electricity to more remote areas of the world -- such as islands -- I have to wonder how well rooftop solar panels or large solar farms would stand up to category 4 and 5 hurricanes.
I believe the solution Musk is proposing would also include large lithium-ion batteries, which when damaged can short and ignite the highly reactive lithium. Another possibility is that the battery can heat to the point of thermal runaway, where the contents exert pressure on the battery, potentially producing an explosion.
So, it's a grand gesture by Musk, but not one without its own set of potential issues.
Let's wait until he's finished his South Australian battery before we give him a new job; he may not even meet his 100 day goal with that.
He's made wild claims before, and the Tesla Model 3 production rate forecast didn't go too well now, did it?
>> Musk: (wild idea to problem X)
Could you please just ship the Model 3 to everyone who wants one?
(http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/02/technology/tesla-model-3-production/index.html)
Telsa is going to be the next Nintendo at this rate.
There's not enough lithium on the planet to produce the batteries required to do this on a country sized scale:
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/08/nation-sized-battery/
I find it hard to follow an article which straight up mis-references its own source to the tune of 10%, and its source which mis-references the supply system for a material by quoting hard rock mining which makes up just a percentage of lithium production as it is more expensive than simply extracting from a spring. Mind you even quoting somewhere between 30-40Mt is nothing compared to the 290000Mt of lithium that could potentially be extracted from seawater.
We won't *ever* run out of lithium. The price may just waver a bit as the economics and technologies around extraction change.
Do you really think Tesla is going to fund this with his own money and expect the Puerto Ricans to pay them back? Don't be so naive. He'll get other people to fund it if they decide to go ahead with it.
"Let them eat cake"
- Elon Musk
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Maybe the practical Limit of ecars is indeed at about 200 Million ?
What we need is critical thinking, Not worshipping holy StMusk.
I'd take issue, AC, with "other technologies". For example:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news...
https://www.greentechmedia.com...
Straight up alkaline, abundant base materials, and the same technology can also be used to make other kinds of batteries. Bill Joy is Not An Idiot, although he did miss the chance to make Sun Microsystems' SunOS into Linux before Linux got off of the ground (and in the process, put the hurt on Microsoft) back when he had a perfectly good 386 Unix and nobody else did. Outside of that one mistake (and sure, it was a doozy) he isn't likely to be pulling a scam or anything like it. This is technology that is probably going to work, and will be commercialized (I'm guessing) in a lot less than five years if early mass-marketable prototypes work as well as the early demonstration cells do. Joy is talking about dropping the cost of house or car batteries from the current $500-ish/MWH to under $100/MWH, maybe as low as half that. And if you follow /. and other science sites, you must be aware that there are advances constantly being made in battery technologies that can, and almost certainly will, revolutionize energy storage within the next few years ASIDE from this one. Synthesis of different advances may yet make zinc oxide batteries work (which would be huge all by itself).
TESLA'S hype may not measure up to reality, but overall the reality is that battery technology is already cheap enough and robust enough to make houses that run well over 90% of the time fully off grid, houses that can run for one to two days on limited sun including AC, at an investment that amortizes in roughly 10 to 12 years at typical power prices. At PR prices of $0.20/KWH it would be more like 7 or 8 -- that is well above the national average. 8 year amortization is actually damn close to being a no-brainer, provided that you install hurricane-proof cells on hurricane-proof houses in a hurricane-prone part of the world, something that one really should do ANYWAY because it doesn't do anyone any good to build a house and have it blow away in a storm.
What Musk proposes is far from crazy, and could conceivably be one of the most cost-beneficial solutions -- but probably NOT if one buys it from Musk himself, as his prices for solar roofs and batteries are at least 50% higher than market average and kicks amortization back up to the 12 year plus level of not obviously worth it. If Joy's batteries come through with 1200+ recharge cycles at $60/KWH (and maybe fronted by supercapacitors to buffer daytime utilization and extend this still further) it will drop the amortization time for solarizing a house to five years at the up-front cost of a cheap car and with the loan repaid entirely by money saved on electricity. Well within five years all of this is going to happen no matter what happens with oil and coal and Paris accords or the like, driven by the simple fact that it will be the cheapest way to get power in 2/3 of the word. Power companies are already building solar as fast as they can afford to because for them, economies of scale already make it a no-brainer (they don't need batteries, for the most part, and can feed the energy straight into their grids to reduce fuel costs at their fuel based plants and avoid having to build expensive GW-scale new plants to keep up with demand).
It will be interesting to see whether or not centralized power generation and distribution survives my lifetime (at this point, likely to be somewhere between 10 and 20 years, small chances of 30 or more). I expect to put solar on both of my houses well within the decade not to save the Earth but to save money, sooner if batteries get cheaper faster and cell prices keep coming down or if meter prices for electricity go up. I'm waiting for
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
The source of the energy is only part of the problem. If you rebuild the same distribution system, you're going to end up with the same problem. The power lines need to be buried and that costs a lot more money than stringing wire on poles.
The wires between houses need to be constructed in either scenario.
One of the benefits of on-prem solar is that the generation is distributed. So no, the two scenarios are not equivalent in terms of distribution (wires).
The period after a tragedy is no time to talk about solutions. Thoughts and prayers only, please.
63kg of lithium carbonate equivalent, not 63kg of lithium. Historically, lithium carbonate prices are $5-10/kg, although due to the rapid scaleups in battery production taking the slack out of the market, they're currently averaging around $15/kg (aka, under $1k for the aforementioned 63kg-carbonate pack). Seawater lithium carbonate costs are estimated at $20-30/kg.
Note that we're not even considering the supply from recycling at this point.
"If there was an antonym to 'Elon Musk', it would be 'Richard Branson'."
could be done sure. Could put solar all over the place. But until he puts his money where his mouth is and actually does it, it's just so much hot air like another hurricane blowing through.
BMW Series 5 sales:
If Elon Musk hadn't snubbed Trump earlier on his business advisory councils, he'd have been more able to gain his ear and shake his tiny hand with a gaudy deal that would distract the press from the shame of tossing paper towels for hurricane relief.
Shiny new infrastructure is what they need at this point. The old stuff is trashed!
A distributed system is ideal for an island, especially when hurricanes can blow everything to bits so often. In this case, two storms wiped out the whole grid.
Now the island has the chance to put power distribution lines for the island's grid underground since they are likely to get big hurricanes more often now, due to climate change.
With a bit of engineering foresight, the solar arrays could be designed with a "hunker-down" mode to better survive the high winds, especially for critical facilities. Solar installations can be designed to withstand 150+ mph winds with minimal damage if need be.
The cost of solar is comparable to the fossil fuel based systems, and critical facilities like hospitals and airports could be up and running again very quickly (using backup panels stored in a safe place) even if the rest of the grid was knocked out.
PlaynBass
You're assuming that the corporate-controlled Congress even cares about those people. What they want is their money. The fossil fuel companies that have a stranglehold on our economy don't want any forward-looking technology until they've finished gouging all USA for every penny they can get out of the old stuff.
PlaynBass
If Trump pays of Puerto Ricans to not come to the US (mainland), next he'll start paying Hondurans and Guatemalan to stay in their shithole countries.
Then he'll start sending advisors to help restore order and rebuild those places since it's US polices that made them gang-infested shitholes in the first place.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAH HAHAH HA
yeah, no.
Man has product to sell, says his item is the one.
Even if Puerto Rico could afford such tech ( which it can't ), who is going to pay for those battery updates / replacements / maintenance going forward ?
I would also be curious to know how well those solar panels do in a Category X hurricane. We don't see a lot of installs here because the area is also a hurricane zone. Hell, most things become projectiles when introduced to a 130mph wind.
Doesn't make a lot of sense to install $$$ panels that will potentially become $$$ projectiles next hurricane season.
Let's face it, Tesla isn't breaking any production records here. So, your Model 3 may be a long time coming.
http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/0...
We're talking price/value here. By your definition something is overpriced if it isn't sold at break-even production costs or lower.
He should not just be talking about it. He should be doing it now... Today.
Ah. Off the top of my head, LiCO3 has a molecular weight of about 67, and Li being about 7, than there's about 6.5 Kg of Lithium per battery pack.
Lithium is fairly abundant but it is very widely distributed and there are few sources of high-quality "ore". Lithium brines contain 100-300ppm lithium. These are a good economical source of lithium, but the brines are fairly scare. Seawater contains about 0.2ppm lithium. It is not (currently) economical to recover lithium from seawater, but seawater is abundant. Lithium in the earth's crust is estimates to be about 20ppm (about half as abundant as copper, about twice as abundant as lead). If you removed the "water" from seawater, the resulting solids would be about 10ppm lithium. Given the mass of the worlds oceans and the mass of the earths crust, these trace amounts become very significant.
Also keep in mind that these ppm numbers are bases on mass, and lithium is a very light metal. A kg of lithium has a much larger volume than a kilogram of copper or lead.
Lithium can also be recovered from used batteries. The lithium is not "used up" in the process.
The bottom line is that there may be production issues and cost variance for lithium in the short term, but we will never "run out" of lithium to make batteries.
So it sounds awesome, but what happens when it gets *super windy* there again. I mean it's not just 'we got these solar panels and a ton of bats... we good' now.
This would be an *excellent* moonshot.
Same as going to the moon is a great thing--but the *real* benefit is all we learned about organization, science, and technology (and sociology) along the way.
Go ahead.
I'm not a power guy, but I am an engineer (PLCs mostly).
I work for a small engineering firm and have for 20+ years. We've got talented folks that can help.
Where should I have my boss send the resumes?
So. Show me some shit.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
I can't understand those numbers without a car analogy.
FWIW, that's 63Kg in a ~460Kg battery. Also, that battery is discontinued, the newer batteries are more energy dense. I haven't been able to find a breakdown of the lithium in the new batteries though.
Why don't you google what the most common elements are on earth?
Before making an idiot out of yourself?
Ah .... you posted anonymous ... never mind then.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
How does compare in Library of Congresses?
5 series is a mid-size luxury, while model S is a full-size luxury. Direct competitor is 7 series.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Burying power mains is ungodly expensive compared to above ground, and it takes much longer to install - how much longer should Puerto Ricans wait to get electricity and how much more will they be willing to pay for that electricity?
Ken
> Man has product to sell, says his item is the one.
Shades of MONORAIL [a.k.a. TROUBLE IN RIVER CITY]
Friend... either you're closing your eyes to a situation you do not wish to acknowledge or you are not aware of the caliber of disaster indicated the suggestion of 'solar 'n storage'! Well, ya got trouble, my friend! Right here in Puerto Rico! Why sure I'm a solar fan, certainly mighty proud I say.... I'm always mighty proud to say... I consider that the hours I spend cultivatin' the little solar patch on my roof golden.
Helps you cultivate self-sufficiency it does, and a keen eye for conservation. It takes judgment, brains, and gumption money to score in the personal energy game, but any boob kin shove a tiny bit 'o power onto the grid when the conditions are right. But the power companies call that sloth. They call it 'negative load'. The first big step on the road to the depths of deg-ra-Day-- I say! First, subsynchronous resonance from a passing cloud, then a phase whammy, then stressin' Northbound South and Eastbound West, slap-a-doodle backflash jigglety pop. An' the next thing ya know, your local energy co-op is doing a no-op and the money's flowing backwards too, some big out-a-town Jasper is undercuttin' the power plant that serves your bread an' butter, but only when it suits 'im. He's gonna suck yer plants dry puttin' folks out 'o work, then swallow you whole!
'Cause energy's not a trottin' race, see? Not this great industrial country! Ne'er has been! Where a little from here and a bit from there lights up everywhere, you take care! It ain't a race when they call the shots and some stuck-up slickers get in your knickers 'an plant Enron stickers on your electric bills to make your blood boil? Well that's night soil, I should say!
Now, friends, lemme tell you what I mean. Ya may have one, two, three, four, five, six plants in your state. Gigawatt plants that mark the difference between a gentlemen and a bum, 'cause they bring jobs with a capital 'J' from bonds with a 'B' that rhymes with 'P' that stands for PAY! And pay they will unless they're fritter'n away their time spinnin' at idle 'cuz solar is waxing at noontime, waning at suppertime, dropping out in the rain and ice storms too! Wind is worse! The grid is cursed! Between time, disaster time, who's left holding the ball? That my friend is YOU 'cuz your power plants are sufferin' as subsidies are flowin' and solar fat cats are strummin' the grid like a money makin' banjo in its time of need. And the microgrid folks demandin' retail from power companies that could get it wholesale... what greed!
Now you can't fault the Sun, folks, for not shinin' at night, growin' dandelions in Winter. But it can't cook your electric dinner or pump yer city water or treat yer waste with haste! Show me a man who flushes into the City, thinks he's sittin' pretty with his solar lights ain't hardly bright enough to read by! How did we come by, forgive me, such fools? They're tools! Wearin' fancy duds may as well been knit from coal, countless other things massive energy brings. And that's trouble, Oh, yes we got lots and lots a' trouble. I'm thinkin' of the kids in the schools warm through the Winter, big buildings here and there, night lights everywhere, 'cause we've got energy to spare and haven't a care! But now Puerto Rico's laid bare!
Wires and poles on the ground all around! Not a pretty sight, you should cross yourself 'an hope it will never happen to you, but what to do? Gotta put 'em up agin, no doubt about it. But here comes trouble, folks, trouble's come to Puerto Rico. Trouble with a capital "T" And that rhymes with "P" and that stands for Powerwall!
Now I know all you folks like the scent of Musk, but I'm gonna be perfectly frank, his ideas stink. He may have the future in a bottle but that future looks like snake oil. Would ya like to know what kinda co
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
Is there a chance the battery could bend?
Good point. However, using a distributed power system, and concentrating on putting the largest installations near the critical systems (Hospitals, etc) would limit the number and length of underground mains. Neighborhoods could be largely self-sufficient, requiring fewer above-ground transmission lines overall, which could be designed for the 150+ mph winds.
PlaynBass